Letter from Tel Aviv

Earlier this month, a liberal Israeli novelist published a liberal polemic in a liberal newspaper. The article, by David Grossman, ran in the op-ed section of Haaretz, and decried Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu’s fevered declarations that he might soon order a unilateral strike on the Islamic Republic of Iran and its nuclear facilities. Grossman warned of Netanyahu’s “megalomaniacal” vision. He asked why Israelis, faced with what “could turn out to be the biggest mistake ever” by their government, were absorbing the news with such “fatalistic resignation”: “How will we face ourselves and our children when we are asked why we kept silent?” he wrote. “Why didn’t we set up a single symbolic protest tent in front of the Prime Minister’s Residence to warn against the potential disaster heading our way?”

Writer discusses the problem of the Gaza strip. When he was there at the end of Feb. & beg. of March the strip was open, in a limited sense, at the Israeli end and closed at the Egyptians. It is now open, with restrictions, at the Egyptian end and closed at the Israeli. The Israelis were in and the Egyptians were out, now the Israelis are out & the Egyptians have set up a complete civil administration The popular Israeli line is that the Army won the victory and the government threw it away, or Eisenhower or Hammar kjold or the oil companies stole it away. The universal importance of Gaza was that its effective occupation by the United Nations offered a possible key to the whole refugee problem of the Middle East. The UN Secretariat, the writer contends, has thrown the key away. There are 219,000 refugees within the Strip, and if they are to be dealt with as individuals, or as cohesive groups the Strip must be held open at both ends as widely as practicable. Then there can be negotiations with Israel over compensation and possible group resettlements within her borders, and with the Moslem world over gainful employment and possible resettlement there. Tells about the tragic lack of work in Gaza, now in the status of an unattached state.

Visit to Tel Aviv, the political, cultural, and commercial capital of Israel. Description of the city, its inhabitants food, restaurants, hotels, night life. Speaks of the optimism of the population, the government's problems and its aims. The biggest problem is probably that created by the influx of hundreds of thousands of immigrants all of whom have to be housed and fed. Tells about grumblings over the policy of unrestricted immigration. Relates the individual experience of a Berlin Jew who escaped death; and of the suffering of those who have flocked to Israel. The nervous tension a residue of years of violence, is displayed only in an excess of energy, and in a super-normality. Personality sketch of Col. Isaac Sadeh, and Ephriam Daphni.

May 4, 1949 was the first anniversary of Israel's Declaration of Independence and attainment of statehood. A rabbi in Jerusalem suggested that women who bore children on that day should name their infants Teshua (Redemption) if they were girls, and Herut (Freedom) if they were boys. Tel Aviv has gotten shabbier after years of war. Most of the architecture is in the harsh Germanic modern style. There was much celebrating on the Day of Independence. Premier David Ben-Gurion said the all important problems of assimilating immigrants and providing housing for them would have to be solved; also waste would have to be stopped. Crowds were so great and uncontrolled that the parade originally scheduled had to be cancelled.